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Contact messages 01 school description (16 Jan)
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Contact messages 01 school description (16 Jan)
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Message 1: School descriptions 16 Jan, 2000 Dear MetLink participants The MetLinkInternational fun will soon begin! We start exchanging weather data on 31 January. First, though, from 17 to 28 January, we have the Contact Phase of the project. This is the first contact message, in which you are asked to supply information about your school, its locality, the weather you expect at this time of year, etc. We shall place the information on the MetLink website. Do feel free to include web links. You can send the information to me as plain ASCII text or send it in a Word file (Word 6 or Word 97) or HTML file, whatever you wish, BUT IF YOU ARE USING A MAC, PLEASE USE PLAIN TEXT WITHIN AN EMAIL. I cannot read files sent from a Mac. 1.. You have already sent us the address of your school and the names of teachers involved in the MetLink project. If there is anything else about your school that you would like project participants to know, please tell us now. 2.. You have already told us which age groups are involved in the project. We'd like to know the names of the pupils, too, but we appreciate that there may be quite a lot of pupils taking part, so please don't feel obliged to list them all. 3.. Please tell us the school's exact latitude and longitude and height above sea level. 4.. Please give us information about the school's location (in a town or a village, on the coast, in a mountainous area, in an agricultural area, etc). 5. Please tell us the LOCAL TIME you expect to make observations each day. 6.. Please tell us whereabouts in your school your observations will be made. 7.. Please give information about instruments that will be used. Are any of them in a Stevenson screen? 8.. Please will you describe the weather you expect in your part of the world in late January/early February. Best wishes Malcolm Walker top
Message 2: Recording instructions 16 Jan, 2000 Dear MetLink participants I am very happy to report that many of you have entered data in the MetLink database successfully. If you have not already tested the database, please will you do so as soon as you can. Please let me know if you are successfull. Please let me know if you are not!! Three important points have emerged so far: 1. Some have asked why we are using the Beaufort Scale of Wind Force. We are doing so because many participating schools do not have apparatus for measuring wind speed -- but they are able to judge wind force by observing the movements of leaves, smoke, flags, etc. The MetLink website http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/radgeog/MetNetEur/MetNetEur.html has a link that takes you to the Beaufort Scale. To find it, scroll down the page to 'MetLink 2000' and then go to "recording hints". This should take you to: http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/radgeog/metlink/hints/hints.html and, from there, to http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/radgeog/metlink/hints/hints.html#wind You may have already noticed that the database converts your Beaufort Wind Force reports to kilometres per hour. 2. Please be sure to give the time of your observation in GMT (also called UTC). If you are not sure of the time difference, please let me know and I shall advise you. If you are in the UK, there's no problem. GMT, UTC and the time your watch should be showing are one and the same thing. 3. In the database, we are asking you to enter SEA-LEVEL barometric pressure. May we suggest that you check your barometer. You may do this by contacting the nearest official weather station. Alternatively, you may check the latest pressure by visiting: either, if you are in the UK --- http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/GB_cc.html or, wherever you are --- http://www.wunderground.com/ Please note that the default units for the wunderground site are degrees Fahrenheit, pressure in inches, etc!! Be sure to overcome this inconvenience by choosing the metric option on the data page you visit. Those are the three points. Just one more URL for you now. If you want to find weather charts, satellite images and other weather information on the web, visit: http://itu.rdg.ac.uk/rms/wweb.html Best wishes Malcolm Walker top
Message 3: Database testing 23 Jan, 2000 Dear MetLink participants Only one week to go now before the active phase of the MetLinkInternational project begins, i.e. the two weeks we exchange observations. This phase begins on 31 January. In the next couple of days, I shall send you some suggestions for activities and/or sub-projects. Some of these will be suitable for children in primary schools, others for older pupils. If you have not yet tested the database, PLEASE, PLEASE will you do so as soon as possible. This is very important, so that we can be sure BEFORE the active phase begins that no problems exist. The test observations in the database will be cleared at the end of this week, ready for the project to begin next Monday. If you have ANY problem over the database, please let me know. In cases of real difficulty, I can enter your observations for you, but I'd rather not, of course!! To those who have already sent in the school details I asked for a week ago, many thanks. You can view them by visiting the MetLink website, on http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/radgeog/metlink/metlink.html and following the links to schools and the school maps. More from me soon. Best wishes Malcolm Walker top
Message 4: Metlink pictures 25 Jan, 2000 Dear MetLink participants One of the outcomes of the MetLinkInternational project is a report, which will be sent to each participant. As in the 52-page report on the 1999 project, pictures will be included. I am writing to ask you to send me pictures for possible inclusion, please. I am looking particularly for pictures of pupils engaged in MetLink activities, scanned copies of newspaper articles that feature/report the MetLink project and, indeed, anything that might be suitable for the report. I can cope with most of the major image formats but I prefer JPG. Please expect two more MetLink contact messages in the next 24 hours. Best wishes Malcolm Walker top
Message 5: Metlink Project suggestions 25 Jan, 2000 Dear MetLink participant Here are some ideas for MetLink themes. In MetLinkInternational, there are children aged 6 and students aged 19. There is something in the project for everyone. One thing you will gain is a large set of weather data which should prove useful to you for months or even years to come. I hope some of the ideas in this message and the next will appeal to you. SUGGESTED THEME 1 >>>>> How carefully do your students listen to the weather forecast? I had a humbling experience last year when I had to do some transcription work, taking my own words from a tape and word processing them. Time and time again, I checked what I had typed with what I had said. Time and time again, I found that I had misheard my own words! And I thought I was concentrating!! How carefully do people listen to the weather forecast? Why not tape the weather forecast each morning and get your students to check (a) what was actually said with what they thought was said (b) what was actually said with what the weather actually was? It might prove an interesting exercise! SUGGESTED THEME 2 >>>>> In MetLinkInternational, we have schools in many parts of the world. Between Scandinavia, the British Isles and Canada in January/February and Oman, India, southern Africa and Australia in January/February there are significant climatic contrasts. In a separate message, I shall draw some climatic features to your attention. Meanwhile, may I suggest that you explore the contrasts during the active and review phases of MetLink? To what extent are the weather observations received from participating schools consistent with expectations at this time of year? Would you be surprised if snow fell on Harare, Addis Ababa or Ascension Island next week? Would you be surprised if a station in Finland recorded a temperature of +15 degrees C in the next couple of weeks? Would a wind speed of 80 kilometres per hour at the school in the south-west of Wales be remarkable? Would it at a school in south-east England? How do latitude, altitude, distance from the sea, etc. affect the weather? During the active phase of MetLink, I shall inspect the observations each day and comment on them in terms of, for example: "Have you noticed .....?"; "Isn't it interesting that .....?". SUGGESTED THEME 3 >>>>> What type of precipitation is falling at your school and other schools in MetLinkInternational? Snow? Type of snow? Hail? Rain? Freezing rain? Big drops of rain? Small drops? Drizzle? Convective rain? Frontal precipitation? Relief (orographic) effects apparent? Tropical summer rain? Intertropical Convergence Zone? SUGGESTED THEME 4 >>>>> In southern Britain, we have many participating schools. Using this comparatively dense network, we should be able to track the passage of fronts across the region. How long does it take the rain at Pembroke to reach south-east England, for example. DOES it reach south-east England? What variations are there between the schools in the British Isles, and why? And what happens to weather systems that cross the British Isles by the time they reach, say, Finland? What changes have occurred? And if it's wet and windy in the British Isles, how different is the weather in eastern Europe, Spain and Malta? In Africa, too, we have a network of stations which should reveal interesting differences of weather between the various parts of the continent. Another aspect of our observing network is that it should be possible to relate variations of wind speed, wind direction, temperature, cloud amount, etc. to changes in, and movements of, weather systems. I shall draw such variations to your attention on a day-by-day basis. top
Message 6: Metlink Project suggestions 25 Jan, 2000 In Suggestions Message No.1, I put a number of thematic suggestions to you. The following additional suggestion was contributed by a teacher taking part in the 1999 project. How does climate affect you? Do you, for example, heat your home at this time of year? Well ..... of course you do in many of the places involved in MetLink International, but how do you heat them? For how long a period do you need to heat them during the year? Are there any MetLink localities where heating of homes is never necessary? And what design features do your homes have for coping with climate? In Scandinavia, for example, is the slope of the roof important in respect of snow accumulation? Are the roofs of homes in windy places sturdier than those in places where mean wind speeds are lower? Notice here that I have used the word 'mean'. I feel sure the teachers and students participating in MetLink will be interested in learning about the different ways climate is taken into account by the designers of buildings in your part of the world. Do please tell us. Best wishes Malcolm Walker top
Message 7: Metlink Project suggestions 25 Jan, 2000 Dear MetLink participants Here are some more themes which may prove useful to you: 1 ... WEATHER AND TRANSPORT How does weather affect transport in your part of the world? In MetLink last year, we heard about cars in Finland coping with extreme cold (temperatures of -50degC!!!). We heard also about trees and power lines falling on roads and railways in southern England. In Madagascar, too, there were communication problems, with power lines brought down in thunderstorms. What problems do you have in your part of the world? Please let us know. Transport includes power lines. Here in the UK, there are sometimes problems on the electrified railways in the south-east of England --- in autumn because of wet leaves on the rails and in winter because of ice and snow on the conductor rail and the freezing of points. To help make road transport safer in winter months, the British Meteorological Office runs a service through which forecasts and warnings of ice and snow are made and issued to the local authorities which are responsible for putting salt and grit on roads. Other weather hazards for road travellers include (a) fog (particularly radiation fog) on major roads in autumn and winter and (b) cars aquaplaning when travelling faster than about 50 miles per hour (80 km/h) in wet weather. How does weather affect transport where you are? How do you cope with problems? Please tell us. 2 ... WATER SUPPLIES AND USAGE Without air, water and food, humans cannot survive. We can live without clothes or shelter in some parts of the world, but nowhere can we live without air, water and food. Let us focus on water. Where do your water supplies come from? In some places there is drought for long periods. Where does your drinking water come from? Underground aquifers? Do you have restrictions on water consumption at any time of year? And on Ascension, you probably have special arrangements for collecting rain and storing it. Please send us some information. What problems of water supply do you have in other parts of the MetLink world? Please tell us. The UK is a comparatively wet part of the world, as you no doubt know, but even here we have water-supply problems. In the summer of 1976, after more than a year of below-average rainfall (generally below 50% of normal), many parts of England and Wales, like other parts of north-west Europe, had restrictions on water usage imposed; and in south-east Wales, water was actually cut off for 17 hours a day for several weeks. In recent years, too, there has been below-average rainfall in southern Britain and streams have dried up. And what use do you make of water, other than drinking it and using for various industrial purposes? Do you use it to generate power? I'm sure you do in Scandinavia, but how much power is hydro-electric? Is it as much as 98% of all power in Norway? To what extent is the melting of winter snow helpful for maintaining supplies of hydro-electric power? Do any of you in the MetLink world use wind power? Do any of you use power from sea waves or tides? I think you do in Norway -- am I correct? If so, where is such power generated, and how much power? That's all for now. I hope these ideas are helpful. Best regards Malcolm See Zambia, Banani school news - impact of weather and climate top
Message 8: Cloudwatch Europe Project 26 Jan, 2000 I am writing to let you know of a project called CloudWatchEurope, which takes place during the week of 20-24 March 2000. This week was chosen because it includes World Meteorological Day, 23 March. Some of you have already told me you wish to take part. If so, please ignore this message. The project is intended for pupils aged 11-16 and is for schools in Europe. The project involves observing clouds and precipitation three times a day each day Monday to Friday during the week of 20-24 March. These observations will be exchanged with other participants by means of the internet. They will be entered into a database on-line. The observations will be discussed and analysed by means of the internet and they will be discussed and analysed in terms of (a) the geography (how they relate to weather systems as these systems develop, travel, etc) (b) the science (the atmospheric processes involved). If you wish to be involved as someone who simply follows the project as it unfolds, please let me know, including the email address you would like me to use when communicating with you. If you wish to participate as someone who contributes cloud and precipitation observations during the week of the project, please supply: * Your name and address * Your school's telephone and fax numbers * The ages of the students who will be involved * The subject(s) supported by the project (geography, science, etc) * The names of the teachers involved * The email address you wish to use for the project * Your school's web address (URL), if it has one Click here for the Cloudwatch website I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible. I shall send details of the project to all who respond to this message. Best wishes Malcolm Walker Mr J M Walker Education Officer Royal Meteorological Society 104 Oxford Road Reading RG1 7LL United Kingdom tel: +44 (0)118 956 8500 fax: +44 (0)118 956 8571 e-mail: education@royal-met-soc.org.uk top
Message 9: Active phase about to begin 27 Jan, 2000 Dear MetLink participants Monday, 31 January, is the big day! It's the day we start exchanging weather observations. It's the first day of MetLink's 'active phase'. Starting on Monday, please enter your observations in the database each day for two weeks. Please remember to give the time of the observation in UTC (i.e. GMT). I hope there are no problems with the database. About twenty schools do not appear in the list of schools that have entered test data successfully. If you have encountered ANY problems, please let me know. Do please remember that your password contains a security character. Your password is NOT the same as your email address. Do remember to include the security character. Quite a number of schools have not sent information about their school's location. This is important information for schools when comparing their observations with those obtained from other schools. It's important for me, too, when I interpret your observations. Each evening during the active phase of the project, I shall write a review of the day's weather, mentioning as many of your localities as possible. In fact, I shall write TWO reviews -- one for primary schools, the other for secondary schools. Only one school will be sent reviews by email - a school which has an unreliable telephone connection to the internet. The reviews will be placed on the MetLinkInternational website, from which they can be printed and the weblinks that are included in them can be explored. John Harris will let me know the web addresses (URLs) of the pages containing the reviews and I shall then let you know them. All being well, reviews should appear on the website the morning after the day that is being reviewed. I do, however, have evening engagements on 2, 4, 9 and 11 February, so the reviews of these days may be a wee bit late. May I remind you that I shall be pleased to pass on emails to other schools for you, should you wish to make friends with other MetLink participants. We have decided not to put participants' email addresses on the web, to protect you from junk emails. I hope you all enjoy the project and I look forward to seeing your observations on the web next week and the week after. If you have ANY queries, my contact details are to be found at the foot of this message. Good luck and best wishes Malcolm Walker top
Message 10: Active phase starts on 30 Jan, 2000 Dear MetLink participants Last year, we had exciting weather in several parts of Europe and Africa during the active phase of MetLinkInternational. What will we have this year? What's the weather like now? We look forward to finding out from YOUR observations what the weather is doing in YOUR part of the world. From a quick inspection of today's weather charts and satellite images, it appears that we have the following: Over northern Europe, it's rather unsettled, mild and windy. Vigorous depressions have been crossing the British Isles and Scandinavia lately. We can expect strong winds to be reported from several schools in the UK and Scandinavia. Temperatures appear to be well above average in northern Europe. The southern parts of Europe seem much nicer. How cold will the weather be in Canada at our school in Alberta during the next two weeks? Edmonton - a question: do you have a winter carnival in your city anything like the carnivals in Quebec City and Ottawa? If so, do you feature ice sculptures, as in the carnival at Quebec City? The current weather chart obtained from http://www.bom.gov.au/weather/national/charts/synoptic.shtml shows high pressure over south-east Australia and low pressure over Northern Territory and Queensland. We can therefore expect fine weather at our schools in Victoria. The monsoon is a feature of the weather in northern Australia at this time of year. The current weather chart from the South African meteorological service shows a cold front lying close to Cape Town, light south- easterly winds and fine weather at Ascension and a tropical cyclone off south-east Madagascar. This chart can be obtained from: http://cirrus.sawb.gov.za/ship/ship.gif Will this cyclone cause any havoc or will it dissipate tamely? Hilton: can you keep us up to date on this cyclone's progress, please? Meteosat satellite images obtained from http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/meteosat/updates.shtml suggest that the Intertropical Convergence Zone over Africa is less active than normal for this time of year. There didn't appear to be much shower activity over Zambia or Zimbabwe today. Skies appear to be pretty clear over Ethiopia and Uganda.
Image from Nottingham University archive
This is just a brief report to whet your appetites for the excitement of the next two weeks. I am very much looking forward to seeing your observations and to commenting on them. Don't forget to send me pictures (JPG images preferred), press reports, etc., please. Best wishes Malcolm Walker top
Message 11: Database and barometer hints 3 Feb, 2000 Dear MetLink friends I hope you and your students are enjoying MetLink. I hope you agree that the project is going quite well. We haven't had too many technical hitches, and I think we have resolved them all, unlike last year, when we never did work out why one school could not enter observations in the database. I am wondering why a few schools have not yet put any observations in the database. Again I say: if ANYONE has ANY problem, PLEASE let me know. Two problem areas are: maximum temperature and (as usual) barometric pressure. Some reported maximum temperatures are surprisingly high - much higher indeed than reported by official weather stations not far away. Please make sure that the sun does not shine on your maximum thermometer. That's the usual reason readings of maximum temperature are too high. Some of your pressure values are not consistent with readings from nearby weather stations. Please check your barometer. You should be able to find a station near you by going to: http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/ccworld.html or http://www.wunderground.com/ For more help on setting up your barometer, see Metlink recording hints. Best wishes Malcolm Walker top
Message 12: UK passage of a depression 3 Feb, 2000 Dear MetLink friends The weather forecasters are predicting stormy weather for some parts of the British Isles tomorrow (Tuesday 8 February). It would be interesting to follow the progress of the day's weather. I wonder if each school in the UK and Ireland taking part in the MetLink project, and also the school at Stavanger, could send me an email message tomorrow afternoon describing the sequence of weather, cloud amounts, cloud types (if possible), wind speeds and wind directions you experienced during the day, with timings. Maybe the reports could be the words of your students, or a mixture of yours and the students'. If you can't undertake this mini-survey, I shall understand, but I think it would be interesting to follow the day's weather and put the reports on the MetLink website with charts and satellite images. Best wishes Malcolm Walker top
Message 13: Best and worst! 11 Feb, 2000 Dear MetLink friends Please will you ask your MetLink students a couple of questions and let me know the answers as soon as possible. I'd like to put the answers on the MetLink website, but I need enough answers to make it worthwhile. Questions: Taking the weather of the last two weeks as the ONLY consideration, where would your students like to have been (a) most, (b) least during the past two weeks, AND WHY? Best wishes Malcolm Walker see answers on the Metlink Student page top
Message 14: Total Eclipse 21 June, 2001 Dear Everyone This is an email to the teachers in southern Africa who took part in MetLinkInternational 2000. I am copying it to a number of people I thought might be interested/have a view, etc. on the contents of the email. In 2001 -- on 21 June, I believe -- you have a total eclipse of the sun. If I remember correctly, the zone of totality runs across southern Zambia and northern Zimbabwe. I wonder if there is any possibility of a project involving your students and the teachers and students of other schools. Basically, what I suggest is that you and they make weather readings on the day of the eclipse every five minutes in the period of 60 to 75 minutes before totality and every five minutes or so in the 60 to 75 minutes after totality. The readings you might make are: dry-bulb temperature, wet-bulb temperature, wind speed, wind direction, barometric pressure and cloud conditions (amount, type, especially changes during the eclipse). Measurements of temperature near the ground AND temperature at a height of a metre, with BOTH thermometers fully shaded from the sun, could yield some interesting or even valuable observations. Please let me know what you think. If the addressees who are in southern Africa would like to participate in this project, it would be really helpful if they could suggest or recruit other schools. We'd like as many schools as possible. Co-ordination of the project you could leave to me. With e-mail, it doesn't really matter if I'm in the next room or half a world away!! An outcome of the project would surely be a report on the findings of the observational programme. I'm sure one of those to whom this email is copied would wish to take a leading role in analysing your observations. Best wishes Malcolm top
Royal Meteorological Society: Weather Club From: Education education@royal-met-soc.org.uk > Subject: Exciting MetLink development Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 11:38:56 -0000 Dear MetLink friends The children of one school that has been taking part in MetLink 2001 wondered why they had to stop entering their weather observations in the MetLink database when the project's data exchange phase finished on 9 February. The database does not allow them to enter data after that date. In response to the children's disappointment, and after consultation with a few teachers who took part in MetLink 2001, we have created a facility for you to continue sharing weather observations with each other. AND WE HAVE DONE MORE THAN THAT. We have created a WEATHER CLUB, which includes access to the database. Here is the web address of the Weather Club: http://www.royal-met-soc.org.uk/weatherclub.html When this page loads, you will find a section entitled "Adding your data to the database". The text in this section starts with "Please click here ...". To add your data, simple click there or, if you prefer, go directly to the page where you enter observations in the database: http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/~brugge/weatherclub/wcinput.html When you get to that page, you use the password that you used for MetLink 2001 to enter data. Please remember, as in MetLink, that you do NOT put C for degrees, % for relative humidity, etc. Just enter the numbers and please use a full stop for the decimal point. The database will be updated twice a day, at 1200 and 0000 UTC (i.e. midday and midnight GMT). During MetLink, I spent four hours each day (more some days) writing the daily weather reports that are such a feature of MetLink. I think you will understand that I cannot continue to do this! What I will do, however, is write a brief review every week or so in which I draw attention to features of your data. I expect this review to be no longer than two or three paragraphs and I intend its purpose to be twofold: 1.. to highlight interesting observations; 2.. to be educational. Please tell other schools about the Weather Club and the database and encourage them to enter weather data themselves. All they need to do is obtain a password, which they do by contacting Roger Brugge brugge@met.rdg.ac.uk He will ask for the full name of the school and a contact e-mail address. Anyone with access to the web can read the pages of the Weather Club's site. Only people with a password can put observations in the database. On the Weather Club site, you will find links to a range of educational material that the Royal Meteorological Society has produced in the past two years. Some of the material is useful in both primary schools (up to age 11) and secondary schools (age 11 and older). Other material is intended only for primary schools or only for secondary schools. A feature for primary schools that is already available is found on: http://www.royal-met-soc.org.uk/weatherclub/primary/polarbear.html An exercise for the eldest students in secondary schools can be found on: http://www.royal-met-soc.org.uk/weatherclub/secondary/whereonearth2.html We hope you will put your weather observations in the database whenever you wish and we hope you will find the Weather Club useful. You can enter data every day if you want to, but we are certainly not asking you to do so. Simply enter observations when you wish to. Please write to us and tell us about the weather-study activities in your school. Please send us pictures. They do not have to be sent electronically. We can scan prints here at the Royal Meteorological Society. You can establish links with other schools by using the e-mail addresses of the schools that took part in MetLink 2001 and you can link up with schools that join the Weather Club in the future. We can supply their e-mail addresses if they are willing to let others to know their addresses. The one thing we shall NOT do is publish e-mail addresses on the web. Best wishes Malcolm Walker top
